


Hearts on Fire

by melodious_madness (dismalzelenka)



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Main Character (Mystic Messenger) is with Mint Eye, Creeps In Positions Of Authority, Denial, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Existential Angst, F/M, My God the Denial, Named Main Character (Mystic Messenger), Passive Suicidality, Pining in Denial, Religion, Self-Harm, Torture, Toxic Religion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-01-04 19:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18350375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dismalzelenka/pseuds/melodious_madness
Summary: Rage, she tells him, is a battery that charges itself. It’s a paradoxical, self-sustaining snake forever finding strength and sustenance in its own bruised flesh, and he wonders if that’s what he sees burning behind the stony blue-grey of her eyes whenever he catches her watching him. He wonders where he can find it for himself, if the white-hot intensity of anger like hers could burn away the terrors that constantly claw his insides to pieces.She tells him not to be an idiot. God only plants fires inside people who deserve to burn.She was the Savior's sister. He was a nobody. They were never supposed to fall in love.





	1. Make a Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone ever wonder how things would have gone down if MC was Rika's little sister? No? Just me?

He’s fourteen when he sees her for the first time. She’s slouched against the stone wall surrounding the cathedral garden, lit cigarette in hand, her gaze schooled into careful impassivity as she watches him pull weeds with dirt stained fingers. Dirty, shoulder-length blonde hair falls into her eyes in frizzy ringlets that frame her face like a halo, the kind decorating the heads of saints and martyrs immortalized in the stained glass windows looming overhead, and he’s never met a saint before but he briefly imagines they would look something like that. Like something captivating hidden beneath a layer of dust and smoke and worldly desperation.

“You can’t smoke here.” He doesn’t know why he said that, and it’s glaringly obvious she doesn’t care. Her silence is so loud it almost echoes. The soil beneath his fingers is damp from a recent rainstorm, and he turns his attention back to the flowerbed with a shrug.

“What’s the point?” she asks. He can hear her boots scuffing against the concrete sidewalk. When he doesn’t respond, she continues, “They’re just going to keep coming back.”

He doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he keeps weeding in silence.

She inhales deeply, then keeps talking. “I mean, the weeds didn’t ask to grow there, but we decide they don’t belong and kill them anyway. Kind of fucked up, if you think about it, right?”

“Yeah,” he says. He looks at the greenery in his hands and frowns, a profound sense of sadness blooming in his chest. “I guess you’re right.”

“Tch.” The cigarette showers sparks as it hits the ground and fizzles out against the wet grass. “They’re just stupid flowers, you don’t have to look so fucking heartbroken.”

He hears a shuffle as her footsteps recede into the quiet murmur of midday prayers before a door opens and slams shut somewhere behind him. The garden is his responsibility, but he finds it increasingly harder to focus on his work.

 

He sees her at mass periodically, slumped down in a pew between mint colored hair and a shock of perfectly manicured gold ringlets. She sticks out quite a bit among sweater vests and plain cotton dresses and the simple, aching perfection of lives he finds himself coveting as he lies shivering at night, motionless under threadbare sheets and savoring the few moments of calm silence before another bottle shatters angrily against the kitchen floor.

Rage, she tells him, is a battery that charges itself. It’s a paradoxical, self-sustaining snake forever finding strength and sustenance in its own bruised flesh, and he wonders if that’s what he sees burning behind the stony blue-grey of her eyes whenever he catches her watching him. He wonders where he can find it for himself, if the white-hot intensity of anger like hers could burn away the terrors that constantly claw his insides to pieces.

She tells him not to be an idiot. God only plants fires inside people who deserve to burn.

 

He’s fifteen when he wakes up to shouting and an empty space in the bed where his brother should be. His mother ties his legs to the kitchen table and threatens to bash his head in with a frying pan if he moves, and he spends entirely too much time wondering how that could possibly be a worse fate. Days go by, then weeks, and after three months his repeated mantra of _Saeyoung will come back for me_ begins to flicker in and out of existence in the back of his mind. The constant ache in his bones is nothing compared to the hollow, gut wrenching agony that accompanies the possibility that his brother left him behind for a chance at a better life, alone, without the dead weight of a weak and useless little brother holding him back.

The days blend seamlessly into an endless, repetitive stream of dry bread, stale water, and alcohol fueled outbursts that leave angry bruises on his face and shards of broken glass in his feet. Still, he lingers, listless, some part of him clinging to life despite having long since lost any real reason to remain. He slips in and out of consciousness and dreams of weeds and vanilla cigarettes and grey eyes behind tangled blonde hair.

 

The knock barely registers in the back of his mind. He wonders if he imagined it, except suddenly his mother is shouting obscenities while polite voices insist they have the authority to come inside. Someone is saying his name and holding a cup of water to his lips, and he recoils. He has learned that, while circumstances are dismal at best, nothing good ever comes from change. The ropes around his ankles loosen. He trembles under a blanket and waits for a stranger in a green uniform to finish wrapping his feet in gauze. Some delirious part of him almost expects Saeyoung to walk in, but no, Saeyoung _left_ , he remembers with sudden and disturbing clarity, and he doesn’t recognize the anguished sound that tears from his chest.

 

He wakes up to sunlight streaming through windows, to the erratic bouncing of tires on gravel and someone carding their fingers through his hair.

“Hey, sis, Sleeping Beauty’s awake.” A familiar voice floats from somewhere above him, and it takes him a moment to realize his head is cradled in someone’s lap.

“Good. Thank you, Adelaide.” A different voice, also familiar. He squints against the overwhelming brightness and makes out the blurred shape of a hand reaching toward his face, and suddenly the world grinds to a halt and he can’t breathe _he can’t breathe_ his fingers are clawing at plastic and cheap upholstery to get out and—

“Shh, it’s okay,” the first voice whispers. A name cuts through the haze: _Adelaide_. Someone is pinning him down. He braces himself for a blow that never comes, and when he finally gasps in a lungful of air, his insides ache and broken sobs are all that’s left.


	2. Sorry Little Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~i will not inflict undue pain and suffering on my characters i will not inflict undue pain and suffering on my characters i will not—~~
> 
> anyway so mint eye is wack what's good

She watches him idly from the edge of the courtyard as he kneels in the cobblestones and spreads mulch across one of the flowerbeds. Remnants of the last snowfall litter the ground in pockets of glittering white. The early morning sunlight catches in his bleached hair. It looks like starlight and spun silk and she hates him for it.

“Adelaide.” The Believer’s voice is soft but final. “It's time.”

She always tells herself that, no, _this time_ she will not cry, that she is above those sorts of displays now, that what she endures is the best course of action for them all. Each iteration begins the same way: a handwritten invitation under her bedroom door, written in Rika's delicate, spidery script. _Tomorrow, Sister, you will taste of Paradise._ Adelaide wonders, not for the first time, when Paradise will start feeling that way.

Maybe thoughts like these are why she hasn't found the joy in it yet.

It doesn't stop the tremor that courses through her entire body when she feels the rope biting into her wrists. She allows herself one long, lingering glance at the boy in the garden, at the coattails of his magenta coat slowly absorbing melted snow, the way gloved leather hands treat the earth with such tender fucking devotion and wonders how on earth this place hasn't broken him to pieces yet. She remembers the morning they found him on his kitchen floor and thinks that maybe he has a different definition of hell, and then anger floods her system because she doesn't think she will ever understand how he stays so fucking _soft_ despite the growing collection of scars decorating his skin.

“Adelaide.”

The Believer speaks again, and she realizes she's stopped walking. Her lingering glance has long outstayed its welcome.

“What are we doing?” she asks in a broken whisper to the robed figure leading her to the chapel.

“Surviving,” the Believer says flatly.

 

They dress her in plain white robes and call her beautiful as they tie her to the altar. She finds herself biting back the urge to spit in their faces. They are taught not to hold back on the journey to paradise, that only by showing their true faces are they able to cleanse themselves fully of the corruption of the outside world. But she's learned by now that fighting only makes the outcome worse.

She's beautiful, they say. The Savior’s blood runs in her veins and makes her faithful. She wants to cut out every single one of their tongues and make a necklace out of their idiocy.

Her hands are tied behind her back. She has a devil inside her too, after all, and devils cannot be trusted. She trembles when the final knots are tightened. The polished wooden floor is cold against her bare feet, and the when she finally slumps against the ropes, they hold her securely even as the panic sets in and she begins to struggle. Someone holds a glass of thick, bitter blue liquid to her lips.

She always tells herself she won't cry this time, but the tears always win in the end.

 

She wakes from a nightmare to the sensation of something cold touching her forehead. Someone is humming softly beside her. She tries to breathe and winces as the air catches passing into her lungs. Her chest hurts, and her throat is raw from screaming, although she briefly wonders if feeling these things means she is still dreaming and trapped in her nightmare. But no, it couldn't have been real.

He wouldn't hurt her like that.

“Where's Saeran?” she croaks. The humming stops, and the person beside her stiffens.

“I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that,” they say.

“Who are you?”

They pause, and then rough fingers dig into her shoulder and she _screams_. The pain shooting down her arm is real. It was real. _Everything_ was real. She leans to the side of the bed and vomits blue sludge onto the floor.

They've lowered their hood by the time she regains her senses enough to raise her head. Dark brown hair with faded streaks of turquoise frames a face of a woman with too much history. The right side of her head sports a row of five tight braids plaited neatly into her scalp, and a flowing tattoo of flowers and vines winds down her temple into the top of her cheekbone.

“Jiyeul,” she says and brushes flecks of vomit from her pants. Her expression is neutral and unreadable.

Adelaide tries to push herself upright but collapses with a groan when her arm buckles out from underneath her. “Where—” She grits her teeth knowing what she invites when she asks again. “Where is Saeran?”

Jiyeul backhands her across the face so calmly it takes her a few seconds to register the pain that explodes from her jaw. “Let it go, kid,” she says. “Come on. Get up. You're being reassigned.” She grabs Adelaide's arm without waiting for a response and yanks her to her feet.

She isn't prepared for the overwhelming nausea that floods her system, or the searing pain that rips down her back as she's twisted out of the bed, and she falls to her knees with a broken whimper.

“Get up,” Jiyeul repeats, more harshly this time.

Adelaide can only shake her head in response. Her nerves are on fire. The pain in her upper back continues to intensify with every motion, and cutting through the agony is the awful, sinking realization that everything she'd endured in the last twenty-four hours had been at the hands of…

No. He wouldn't. He _couldn't_. 

A swift kick to her ribcage cuts through her panicked rumination and leaves her curled up on the floor gasping for breath. “Don't make me say it again.”

“Help—help me, please,” she manages to whisper through the tremors and sobs wracking her body. “I- I'll go with you, I swear, I just, I can't, please—”

When she finally manages to look up, the expression on Jiyeul’s face has changed. There is a softer look in her eyes, a note of concern in her frown. In the soft lighting of the room, Adelaide wonders deliriously how much of this is still a fever dream. And when Jiyeul holds out her hand this time, Adelaide weakly outstretches her arm and bites back the scream welling up in her throat to a pathetic whimper.

“Good girl,” Jiyeul says, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips. Her touch is gentle this time as she carefully helps Adelaide stand on trembling legs. A soft hand brushes matted hair away from cheeks stained with blood and tears. A quiet, choked sob breaks free, and Adelaide recoils from a retribution that never comes.

The arms that cradle her instead shouldn't feel this safe, she thinks, but when they leave the room together she has already forgotten how to be afraid.


	3. Smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if plot, but like, just a little

He doesn't care.

He repeats it to himself as he double and triple checks his work before running it through the compiler, and when a flag inevitably pops up, he buries himself in error checking and chants over and over to himself just _how much_ he doesn't care.

Because he doesn't.

Sounds don't tend to carry through a foot of reinforced steel and concrete. His only audio links to the rest of their little sanctuary are those he's painstakingly set up himself through months of trial and error, and if the accompanying video cameras are a bit over the top, well, he's nothing if not thorough when it comes to his work. The Savior demands the best of them, after all. Being tasked with maintaining her information superiority over the rest of her disciples means he's allowed some freedom over how he chooses to follow her instructions. Everything he does is for the betterment of their cause.

And the little flutter-skip his heart does whenever he overhears a very specific phrase preliminary phrase on the security channel, well. That's easily explained away as too much caffeine on not enough sleep. (Realistically speaking, those conditions have just been his default state of existence for the past few years now, anyway.) He certainly isn't _anticipating_ what comes next. That would be patently absurd.

The security intercom crackles again.

“Believer Number N019 Adelaide Cherry, requesting entry at Checkpoint Delta, over.”

He doesn't care.

“Affirmative, N019. Stand by,” someone responds.

He doesn't care.

He leaves that particular audio channel on until he can no longer hear the engines rumbling. When he reaches over to shut it off and accidentally switches over to a different channel instead? Complete accident. He's distracted with this project. It's just mindless noise to break the monotony.

_“I'm back, bitch; you miss me?”_

_“Took you long enough. Did you get the intel?”_

_“What is this, amateur hour? Give me ten minutes to let Choi get his hands on it. We'll have access to the entire grid.”_

He doesn't care, he doesn't care, he doesn't care—

His own intercom dings, and he practically jumps out of his skin.

“Wake up, nerd. Briefing in ten minutes.” Her voice floods his system with a rush he chalks up to the fact that he simply stood up too quickly. ~~He doesn't care.~~ He watches through the security camera as she leans into the console and pops her gum right into the speaker. “Wake up~”

Overwhelming irritation drives his fist onto the talk button hard enough to scatter a stack of papers to the floor. “Christ, will you _shut up?_ I heard you the first time.”

“Ten minutes, Choi. Don't be late.” She blows a kiss to the camera with a crooked smirk and saunters away, and he pretends not to notice the way her hips sway when she walks down the hall.

Truth be told, every interaction he has with the Savior’s sister leaves his nerves on edge. Loud, brash, bold, decisive; Adelaide Cherry is and has always been everything he isn't. She has an uncanny ability to dig her nails under his skin and leave him feeling raw and hollow, exposed like a live wire and ready to combust into everything and nothing at a moment’s notice. Even as she tears him to pieces she pulls him from the depths of his poisonous doubts into something worth, well…

He shakes his head roughly. It's dangerous, thinking about his own worth.

He smooths out the wrinkles in his pants, grabs a fresh shirt with trembling hands, and tries to ignore the steadily growing weight in the bottom of his chest. The buttons catch on his fingers; it takes him three tries to fasten them all together correctly aligned. By the time he throws on his coat and fastens the little chain across his collar he already knows he's running late.

When the intercom buzzes again he slams it with the palm of his hand. “I thought I told you to fuck off, Cherry—”

“A–apologies, M–mr. Saeran, uh, sir, the–the Savior sent y–your dose—”

_Fuck._

He unlocks the door and wrenches it open. “Great. You can go,” he growls, closing clammy fingers around the proffered glass vial and downing its contents in a single gulp. His patience for the groveling idiots she sends to his door has long since worn thin, though the way the taller man visibly shrinks under his glare brings him a small modicum of satisfaction as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“For eternal paradise,” the Believer mumbles. He's visibly shaking, fear rolling off of him in waves. He looks familiar, Saeran thinks with a frown, and he grips the man's chin between his thumb and forefinger to get a better look at his face.

Oh. Oh _right_. Memories of that face contorted in pain rise to the surface of his mind, and he feels a sadistic grin spread across his face. “I remember you,” he breathes, and it feels so _good_ to look up into the man's eyes and watch him physically recoil in terror. “Did you have a good time the other night?” He trails ragged nails down the side of the man's face and leans in closely. “I did,” he whispers, and relishes the whimper he draws from the man's lips. “Your screams kept me up all night.”

He barely registers the heavy sound of boots thudding against the tile floor in an irritatingly familiar cadence until _her_ voice rings out, harsh and discordant in his ear.

“Goddammit Choi, I really didn't want to waste time tracking you down—”

He looks up, and she pauses, taking in the scene before her with growing interest and slowly rising eyebrows. “Nice to see you up and about, Nikolaus,” she chirps conversationally, a brilliant smile lighting up her face, and for a fleeting moment he imagines her living literally any other life but this one, a life where a smile like that could be frequent, and real.

It's clear based on the way the man before him visibly tenses even further that he does not share Saeran's opinion on her smile. She seems unaffected, though, simply dismissing the man with a lazy wave of her hand when he doesn't respond. “Well? Off you go, then.”

They watch in silence as Nikolaus scurries away, practically tripping on the hem of his robes in his haste. Saeran leans casually against the wall and inspects his nails. He pretends the entire exchange actually did something to stem the growing sense of emptiness in the center of his chest.

She pops her gum again, and an involuntary shudder rips through his spine.

“Do that one more time, and I'll make you regret the day you were born,” he snarls, and in that moment he _loathes_ her, hates her more than anyone else he's ever known.

He pretends not to notice the overwhelming scent of floral perfume or the way it masks the lingering notes of vanilla and smoke clinging to her clothing. He ignores the way she stiffens for the briefest of moments before scoffing, “Yeah, good luck with that.”

He ignores how he seems to be doing an awful lot of pretending today.

The harsh fluorescent lighting only further highlights the bags beneath her eyes and the sunken, hollow quality of her cheeks. Up close she looks as though she's neither slept nor eaten in days. Her stormy blue grey eyes are unusually lifeless despite her previous manic enthusiasm, but he quashes the flicker of worry in his gut the second it peeks out its head and storms off toward the conference room without another word.

And if the footsteps behind him falter ever so slightly before following, well, he doesn't really care about that either.

 


	4. Complicated

“…can't fit more than six people in those at a time—Adelaide? Adelaide.”

Adelaide blinks and looks up from the lopsided circles she's been doodling on the memo pad in front of her, pen held loosely in her fingers. “Oh, um. What?”

A woman she doesn't recognize is gesturing at a tablet screen across the conference table, but between the glare, the size of the screen, and the distance Adelaide can't quiet make out the contents. She squints, chews on her lip, and tries very hard not to fumble in her pockets for a nicotine patch with shaking hands.

Before she can say anything, Saeran reaches over her with a bored expression on his face and snatches the tablet out of the woman's hands. He fiddles with the screen, taps away at something on his phone, and the flatscreen mounted to the wall at the head of the room flares to life with a series of photographs of nondescript looking passenger vans.

“Thanks,” she mumbles.

He just hands the tablet back wordlessly and slouches further into his seat, glare even more pronounced as he casts a sidelong glance in her direction. She grits her teeth, takes a deep breath. The Savior is staring at her with a questioning expression, and she fights the urge to shrink further under her sister's piercing emerald gaze.

She can already hear the questions. _Are you alright, my darling?_ Voice dripping with innocent concern and just enough disappointment to latch a vise around her chest and leech the breath from her lungs. _My poor child, how tired you look. Have you been saying your prayers?_

She forces her attention to the topic at hand and tries not to think about her last few days on the outside.

 

_One week earlier:_  
  
Last night wasn't supposed to happen.

Last night shouldn't change anything, can't afford to change anything, but if there's anything Adelaide has learned the hard way, it's that fate rarely favors the good outcomes.

She slams the door to the dusty beige Mazda she's been granted for the next week and finds herself dodging a sweatshirt flying directly at her face. “Collect your shit from my bed before you leave next time, by the way,” she hears Jiyeul complain, and she pulls at the fabric covering her eyes before glancing at the glowering woman standing at the Magenta compound’s main doors.

“How'd you know it was mine?” she singsongs. Put on a smile, hop in the car and drive away, put the mission first. Get the fuck out before things get even more complicated.

“Check the damn pockets. You know anyone else who chews lemonberry mint? The fuck sort of flavor is that?”

Adelaide shakes out the sweatshirt and retrieves a slightly squished, mostly intact pack of gum from the pocket. “Winners, Jiyeul,” she says with a lopsided smile she hopes looks natural, stuffing a piece into her mouth. “Bitches who get results.” The gravel crunches under her feet as she leans down and tosses the sweatshirt into the car through the open passenger side window.

“Hey.” Jiyeul slings her rifle over her shoulder and lets it hang by the strap as she steps forward and grabs Adelaide by the arm. The grips of her gloves dig into Adelaide's bicep. “You okay?”

Jiyeul’s concern sends alarm bells flashing through Adelaide's system. Concern is suspicious. Admitting faults is weakness. Persistence and perseverance are holy, holy, _holy and blessed are the diligent who suffer toil without ceasing—_  
“Hey. Come back to me.” Jiyeul shakes her gently by the arm. There's a flash of something akin to affection in her grey eyes, and Adelaide brushes the feeling away and buries it. “I'm not—” she pauses, leans in, and Adelaide feels hot breath tickling her ear as Jiyeul lowers her voice to a low murmur. “This isn't some kind of fucked up test, ok? I…”

Adelaide yanks her arm back like she's been burned as Jiyeul trails off. “Don't,” she hisses before Jiyeul can say anything else. “It was just sex. Okay? The end. Don't make this into more than it is.”

She forces the feelings down again, harder this time, even as they bubble up even more urgently against the lump in her throat. Her feet take her to the other side of the car, and she hears footsteps following behind her.

“Adelaide. Adelaide, _wait_.”

She slides into the driver's seat and closes the door behind her, rolling the window down as she starts the engine. “Can't, gonna be late,” she chirps. Then, more solemnly, because it's expected and she can't afford any more slip ups, “For eternal paradise.”

Always, always for eternal paradise. It's what they fight toward, isn't it? Day in and day out, the words are repeated woven into fervent prayers and declarations of devotion. She reminds herself what she's been told for years: by our sacrifice they find their peace. This is what it means to be a disciple, and there is no room in that creed for a momentary lapse in judgment brought on by lonely midnight sentiment.

She doesn't look in the rearview mirror. She doesn't need any more reasons to tangle her thoughts even more than they already are.

The drive down the mountainside is slow and treacherous. It's a perfect metaphor for how she feels. There is soil beneath the light blanket of late spring snow, but for now everything is still and white, suffocated by something cold masquerading as beauty.

Her chest tightens painfully with every doubtful sentiment. There is a booster pack of elixir in the glove compartment, and she finds herself pulling over, gasping for air as she fumbles with the cap and drains the glass vial in a single gulp before collapsing in a heap with her back in the snow. She can feel it melting against her scalp, water trickling through her hair like a baptism in ice.

She closes her eyes and tries not to think about the last time she experienced rebirth, or how she can still feel cold metal biting into her skin when she lets down her guard. Or the fact that maybe repeatedly burning out the darkness has only left more stains on her soul.

Maybe if she prays had enough right now she'll freeze to death here and the snow will take the rest.


	5. Eyes Closed, Feet First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit starts to pick up a little from here, folks. Mind the tags; they're being updated with every chapter. This is not a fluffy story.

_Recruitment Mission 5KR3B7 Day One_  
  
The motel room she's given is simple but clean. A garish set of sheets and blankets cover the two slightly sagging double beds. She throws her duffel on the one furthest from the door and kicks her boots off before sinking into the mattress. She reaches blindly onto the nightstand for the remote and flops her fingers on the buttons until the screen flickers on before letting her head drop back into the pillow. The sounds of a daytime TV drama fill the room, and she closes her eyes and imagines what it would be like to live on the other side of the screen, in some fictitious, make-believe world that didn’t equate joy and pain, and—

She barely makes it to the bathroom before heaving up the meager contents of her stomach into the toilet.

Dangerous thoughts. There seems to be an onslaught of dangerous thoughts lately. If she can manage to stymie them once and for all though, then maybe … what, exactly? She sinks to the floor and lays her cheek on the toilet seat, stares at the yellowing wallpaper, at a series of cracks spiderwebbing across the ceiling.

 

_“There’s a crack in the ceiling,” she observes. She taps Jiyeul on the shoulder, points. The tiny dormitory-style room they share feels even smaller somehow when they’re in the same bed._

_Jiyeul shushes her softly, trails kisses down her neck and across her collar. She smells like gunpowder under the lily-sweet fragrance of her shampoo. An appropriate scent, Adelaide thinks, for someone who’s made a career out of death. “I’ll file a report with the maintenance team in the morning,” Jiyeul murmurs. Their lips meet again, and Adelaide wants so badly to lose herself in sensation. She focuses on the way Jiyeul’s tongue nudges against the seam of her mouth, teeth scraping gently on her bottom lip. She can taste the bitterness of the elixir, smell it on Jiyeul’s breath, and she wonders how much of this onslaught of desperate desire is born of the euphoria that follows an increased dose._

_Turning off her brain seems to be a useless endeavor, so she just closes her eyes and lets her thoughts wander, and somewhere in the back of her mind she lingers on a memory of golden eyes and a shy smile._

 

Evening has finally arrived by the time she stands in front of a nondescript looking warehouse building sporting a giant backlit sign that reads “Mount Olive Community Church.” It isn't the first time she's been assigned missionary work, but the faces of the faithful seem extra lost this time. Slung on a strap across her shoulder is a bag full of printed flyers bearing the Mint Eye crest, neatly designed invitations to paradise crafted specially for the castaways of society. She should be proud of her handiwork—and maybe once upon a time she would have been—but tonight she only feels empty.

She's greeted by a clean shaven man in a suit and tie who calls her “sister” and grasps her hand between his in a warm greeting that doesn't quite reach all corners of his face. The urge to pull her fingers back and jam her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt is almost overwhelming, but she forces a smile to her face and thanks him politely for welcoming her into the congregation.

_For eternal paradise,_ she reminds herself, again and again, in a vain attempt to quell the churning in her stomach. The man who greeted her preaches a fire and brimstone sermon about salvation at any cost, and Adelaide can barely hold back a smile at the irony. She scans the attendees from her seat near the back of the auditorium and picks out the faces that shrink from the pulpit, commits them to memory to find after the service is over.

Two seats over, a rail-thin young man in a ratty windbreaker jacket is visibly chewing on his bottom lip, fingers gripping nervously  at the fabric of his jeans. Three rows in front of her, a girl with faded purple hair looks skittish enough to bolt at a moment’s notice. A middle aged woman on the other side of the auditorium sits with her arms folded around herself while a little girl who looks like her crawls around nearby.

The child gives Adelaide momentary pause, and she runs her thumb along the cigarette carton in her sweatshirt pocket absentmindedly as she watches them.

_Paradise is for everyone._

_….right?_

She shakes her head and pretends to pay attention as the pianist bangs out a mediocre rendition of _Just As I Am_ while the pastor wraps up his speech with an impassioned plea for souls and money in equal measure. Something about his demeanor sets her teeth on edge. Oily is the only word that comes to mind; not quite dirty enough to be _slimy_ , but getting there. His smile is too wide and shows a few too many teeth. She makes a mental note to investigate him later and forces herself to focus. 

When she greets him again at the door as people file out of the hall, she dials up the warmth in her own expression and holds an enthusiastic conversation about how moved his words made her feel. She discovers that he goes by Reverend Shawn Allen, that he has a wife and four children between the ages of six and sixteen, and that he found her _particularly intriguing_ and wants to chat with her further about her relationship with God.

The way his fingers caress down her arm when he says it leads her to believe that isn’t the only topic he wishes to discuss, especially when he answers her request for a phone number with a bit too much excitement. _Gross_ , is all she can think to herself as she takes the number down in her phone.

She pretends to save his contact information and sends it to Saeran instead along with a hastily typed, “rev. shawn allen, mt olive comm church, pls bkgd check” and ignores the way her heart skips two whole beats when she spots his name in her recent contacts. Their correspondence is entirely professional, of course, mostly numerical coordinates, shorthand status updates, and requests for information not unlike the one she just made.

She bites back the urge to check her phone immediately when it vibrates in her pocket less than a minute later, electing instead to mingle in the parking lot with the people she’d previously marked in her head. The woman with the little girl is leaning against a beat up pickup truck with a cigarette in her mouth, and Adelaide decides that’s probably the easiest conversation starter she has. She puts on her best nonthreatening smile, fluffs out her curls, and walks over, her own cigarette carton in hand.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Can I get a light?”

The woman grunts and flicks a cheap plastic lighter at her. She pulls a cigarette from the box and holds it to the flame, lighting it with a deep draw of air. Tobacco, vanilla, and spices flood her senses, and for a blissful moment she feels the agitation gnawing at her insides finally calm down. There’s no shortage of nicotine patches available back at Magenta, but there’s something about the real thing that no amount of synthetic substitute can match. She leans on the truck next to her target and closes her eyes, lets the smoke wash over her body.

“Cloves, huh?” the woman comments, and the corner of her lips quirks up in a half smile. “My sister used to smoke those. ‘Course, that was before the meth, now she spends everything she has on that shit. Never thought I’d say I miss the smell of the damn things, but here we are. Could never really get over the taste, personally.”

“My sister hates them,” Adelaide laughs. It’s true; Rika had vocally disapproved of the habit back when she was still smuggling them into Mrs. Kim’s house in her bra and smoking them in the attic bathroom with the doors locked and the windows open. Thinking of Mrs. Kim always makes her heart twist in a strange way. She absentmindedly rubs at a scar on the back of her left hand and forces the memory down with the rest that have been plaguing her the past twenty-four hours.

“Sounds like a smart girl,” the woman teases. “So, what brings you out here tonight? No offense, hon, but you look a little too put together for this crowd.”

Adelaide laughs. “I don’t know about all that. I’ve been told I clean up nice. What about you?” 

“Lord, that’s a story.” She flicks the butt of her cigarette to the ground and lights another one immediately after. “Short version, my sponsor dragged me here after I fucked up my four month sobriety chip. Not entirely sold, to be honest. I prefer my higher powers with a little less phallic desperation than the one this guy’s selling.”

The laugh that bubbles up from the back of Adelaide’s throat is 100% genuine this time. “Guess you won’t be surprised that I prefer my home church, too, then. My sister runs it, actually.”

“Huh. Good for her. Y’all got room for one more fucked up soul?” She jerks her head toward the building. “Maybe it’s time I get my shit together, but this here, this just isn’t gonna cut it for me.”

Adelaide barely holds in her elation.  She allows herself a small smile as she reaches into her bag and passes over one of the fliers. “As luck would have it, we’re holding a spiritual retreat in the mountains soon. You should come by if you’re curious.”

The woman barks out a laugh when she notices the bag of pamphlets. “And the truth comes out, eh? So that’s why you came out here. You, what, just go around to these places and rescue the disillusioned and damned, huh? Hey, knock that off." She swats her hand at the little girl, who had been entertaining herself by picking bits of peeling paint from the passenger side door. 

“Pretty much, yeah.” Adelaide decides to be candid with this one. “My sister has this effect on people, you know? Makes it so easy to believe you’re worthy of something greater than yourself. We’re all broken, but together we make up a body of believers with enough faith to, well. Move mountains, as they say. Maybe it’s cliche, might be a complete waste of your time, but if you decide to check it out, all we’re asking is that you show up.”

She’s made this speech with hundreds of variations at this point, but never have the words felt quite as hollow as they do today, and the thought leaves a sour taste in the back of her mouth. She squashes that one down with the rest of them. Who is she to deny someone Paradise because of her own petty doubts and distractions? The knot in the pit of her stomach only pulls tighter through the rest of the conversation, through the two other conversations she has that night, and when she finally returns to her motel room she finds she’s smoked her entire pack in one evening.

Her phone vibrates again, and she finally checks her text messages.  
  
_K006: why?_  
 _K006: yea sure_  
  
_K006: done_  
 _K006: check your email_  
  
She raises her eyebrows and scrolls through her phone until she finds her email app. The file is encrypted and takes her three separate tries with different keys to crack, but when she finally pulls up the report she can only grimace at its contents. None of it seems particularly surprising as she scrolls through felony records of corporate bribery, embezzlement, tax fraud, and a particularly disturbing list of assault report she forces herself to read anyway. A few scattered political and financial ties catch her eye.  
  
_N019: he's smuggling rx drugs through diamond pharma_  
 _N019: might be able to score us funding and lab resources_  
  
_K006: …_  
 _K006: why_  
  
An icy tendril of annoyance and something else far more unpleasant and difficult to understand curls up and takes root somewhere deep inside.  
  
_N019: the fuck u mean why?_  
  
_K006 is typing…_  
 _K006: nvm_  
 _K006: be careful_  
  
She wants to scream and throw her phone across the motel room. The taste of stale tobacco coating her tongue is making her want to vomit. Saeran has a way of getting under her skin like no one else, and part of her hates him for it, hates how every conversation with him leaves her wanting to pull at her hair in frustration over absolutely nothing.

_Be careful._ With two words he's managed to spin her entire evening careening out of control, and all she wants is to know why, why, _why_ does this boy always find the one loose thread in her carefully constructed mask and unravel it with barely any effort at all. He's always had this effect on her, she realises, and that icy feeling expands into an all-encompassing discomfort that makes her want to tear her skin off.

She fiddles with her evening dose of elixir and decides she needs at least one more cigarette before brooding in this stupid motel room until she passes out from drugs and exhaustion. Her skin feels hot, her jacket rubs uncomfortably at her arms, the fluorescent lights outside her door buzz and make her ears hurt, and when her feet finally carry her into the convenience store next door, she wonders yet another time if this is all there really is.  



	6. Intermezzo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to This High by The Man Who for a whole bunch of this chapter. 
> 
> I upped the rating to Explicit for two reasons: the smut got a little more detailed than I expected it to, and there is a brief but graphic self harm scene. As always, mind the tags. 
> 
> Thanks for following this story! ^^
> 
> PS: Now with art of Adelaide and Saeran by the absolutely incredible [Kawereen](http://kawereen.tumblr.com), commissioned by [ladymdc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymdc). (ladymdc also writes some Excellent, Quality Fic for this fandom, so if you're a Saeyoung/MC shipper LOOK HER THE FUCK UP, seriously, she's so good, what the hECC I love her so much. 

Hands. That's all she's aware of at first, hands wandering down her chest, gripping her hips, pulling her closer to the body lying next to her that's filling her senses with warm vanilla and fresh tilled soil. Her eyes are closed, and when she inhales she finds soft lips against her own, lips that remind her of smoke and sticky summer nights and all of the things she wanted to do if only she'd been less afraid. There's a palm against her cheek, thumb tracing the shell of her ear in a way that sends heat racing through every nerve, and those lips — _god_ , those lips are everywhere and nowhere all at once, nipping at her neck, exploring the curve of her jaw, planting a row of hot, wet kisses against her collar that leave her anticipating exactly where else those lips could go.

Those kisses swallow the pleading moan that floats from her mouth when she's pressed into the mattress. She opens her eyes to pale hair and a soft amber gaze wearing an expression she can't read. A shy smile plays at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes beam adoration when he traces her lips with awestruck fingers. _Adelaide_ , he whispers, soft like reverent midnight silence, soft like gentle summer rain, always so fucking soft he makes her sick but tonight, she thinks, perhaps it's okay. _Tell me_ , he pleads, _show me how to be good for you._

She aches for him, for the soft brush of his fingertips against bare, sweat-slick skin, for the hardened length grinding against her hips, for lips that burn like the sweetest fire she's ever touched and oh _god please_ , she begs herself, don't ever let go of this feeling.

When he slips a hand between her legs and parts her lips with his fingers she can't hold back her sighs, breathy and light and _free_ , and distantly she thinks that here, in his arms, under his touch, maybe _she_ can be those things too. The smallest amount of pressure against her clit sends her bucking her hips involuntarily into his hand. He begins to rub her gently with his thumb, and she grips his shoulders with both hands when he slips two fingers into her slick, wet heat. She can't breathe. She is underwater, she is drowning, she is being dragged below the surface, but oh, oh _god_ if she had to choose a way to die she would pick this a thousand times, and when her orgasm wrings her body dry she thinks dimly that this, _this_ is what salvation could be.

 _Tell me_ , he says again, but his words are clipped and harsh, and his glare is a sickly pale green when he looms over her, arms braced on either side of her head, trapping her beneath his body. _Tell me_ , he repeats. _When did you get so fucking predictable?_

The pressure in her chest doubles as he leans in and nips at her ear with a predatory growl. His kisses are bruising, capturing, claiming with unflinching certainty that if she does not give what he wants he will take it without a thought to spare. She wants to tell him not to bother. Even now, all she has to give already belongs to him, and she knows it will be her undoing but she would gladly trade every scorched piece of her soul for one more moment lost in his presence.

 _Nothing to say, princess?_ he taunts. He enters her roughly and without warning, but she welcomes him in, feels her walls clench at the sensation. He fills her, leaves her empty and wanting, over and over, driving into her at a punishing pace. All she can do is throw her head back and hold on, lost in an onslaught of heat and friction and desperate, frenzied desire. She needs this, even if it's killing her she _needs_ it, and the instant their eyes meet she knows: behind the blinding anger and simmering hatred, _he needs her too_.

It is with this thought she tumbles over the edge again, his name a nonsensical litany on her lips as he turns to dust between her fingers.

She gasps into the empty air of her motel room, flails beneath sweat soaked sheets before she finally manages to rip them from her body. The air conditioning is painfully cold on her bare arms, skin sticky with perspiration and prickling with goosebumps. The clock on the nightstand blinks _5:27 am_ in bold red letters, and the buzzing fluorescent light outside filters in through moth eaten curtains.

She's going to be sick again, she can _feel_ it clenching and churning in the pit of her stomach, and with the bile splattering the grimy carpeted floor she heaves up a thousand false memories.

It hurts, she thinks. She's eloquent enough in front of strangers with opinions to sway, but alone in this moment all she can think is how much all of it fucking _hurts_.

When he looks at her from across the room, and for a split second there's unfettered concern scrawled across his frown. When he holds the knife to her skin, when she makes the mistake of looking up before he can school his expression into passive indifference and there is nothing but numb regret. When it's her hand on his throat, alone in the dark with nothing but his muffled whimpers and her own labored breathing as she snuffs out his hope and repeats to herself that it's for his own good. With every order she obeys she tears off another piece of herself, sets it on fire and watches herself burn, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts _so much_ , but she goes along with it all the same, because without the framework of her duties to keep her going, what else is left? It's just like her sister always says: _we embrace the devils the rest of humanity chooses to ignore. It is a steep price we pay for acceptance, but without purpose our lives drive us into inevitable ruin. We are weeds, Adelaide, and pain makes us thrive._

And so she steps over the mess she made, tosses a towel over it and leaves it for housekeeping as she pulls on a pair of jeans and fumbles for a toothbrush.

_Pain makes us thrive._

She grabs a pocket knife from her duffel and presses the serrated blade to the inside of her arm. The bite of steel on flesh shocks her system into high alert, her pulse quickening as she draws the knife across her forearm and watches blood pool and trickle down her wrist and onto the cheap synthetic porcelain of the bathroom sink. The heady rush that follows eclipses everything else, and for a few glorious moments she closes her eyes and remembers why she's alive.


	7. Sun Won't Rise

_Recruitment Mission 5KR3B7 Day Two_

  
The day mostly consists of planning and waiting. Adelaide leaves the motel exactly two times, not counting the numerous occasions where she stands outside the door chain smoking to counteract the nerves that threaten to swallow her whole.

The first time she leaves, she goes to stock up on more cigarettes and gum. She foresees a long day of researching and planning ahead, and she wants to avoid going out in public more than absolutely necessary.

“Hey again,” the cashier says. It's the same person from last night, a tired looking young woman with flamingo pink hair, impossibly long eyelashes, and piercing gem green eyes that remind her way too much of her sister. “Long night?”

“You could say that, yeah,” Adelaide mumbles. She fumbles in her wallet for cash and the fake ID she's been given for the week. She hasn't even bothered to look at it this time, and she knows how dangerous that is, how quickly her cover could be blown if the wrong person asks the wrong question, but for some reason she can't bring herself to care. It should be alarming, really, how little she cares this time, but like everything else currently ratcheting around in her head, the most it elicits is a quietly buzzing anxiety pulsing against the back of her skull when things get a little too still.

 _Beep_. The cashier— _Hello! My name is Lacy!_ the name tag proclaims in bold blue letters—lazily scans two cartons of cigarettes, a pack of gum, and a can of Red Bull and slides it all into a flimsy paper bag. “So…got any plans for the weekend?” she asks when she hands back the ID. Casual, like her demeanor, but Adelaide can see the unspoken question in her face.

“Only in town til Thursday,” she says. Simple, clipped answers. She hasn't prepared to engage in small talk today, and even this interaction is rapidly draining her of energy.

Lacy clicks her nails—pink, like her hair, and covered in glitter—against the scratched up countertop. “That's a shame,” she says. “Drinks before you leave?”

Bold, but not unexpected. What surprises Adelaide more is what comes out of her own mouth: “Maybe, yeah.”

A raised eyebrow, a surprised upturn of full, glossy lips, and it's clear Lacy hadn't expected her to respond that way either. "Cool, cool," she says. _Clack clack clack_ go her nails on the counter. The silence suspended between them is thick with unanswered questions. Suddenly filled with a blinding, all-encompassing panic, Adelaide snatches the bag from the counter, spins on her heels, and practically sprints out of the convenience store.

"You want your change?"

"Keep it!" Adelaide yells back. Her shoes pound the pavement, and she doesn't stop running until she's stumbled back into the motel room and slammed the door behind her.

 _8:03 am._ She's an hour late for her morning dose of elixir. Relief floods her body— _there's a reason_ , she thinks dimly, an explanation for her earlier behavior. She understands now why her resolve wavered and vows it won't happen again. Maybe she can make good on those tentative plans, flirt her way into another possible conversion for Mint Eye, and my _god_ the prospect of that sounds so exhausting she can hardly breathe.

No, she reminds herself. She isn't worthy of such lofty goals, not when she's clearly not even strong enough to control herself for a five minute cigarette run. She uncaps the vial carefully, stares at the swirling blue liquid inside for a brief moment before tipping the whole thing down her throat.

_Pain makes us thrive._

She gasps when it hits her tongue. The elixir burns the entire way down, and for the first few moments all she can do is lie back on the bed and close her eyes while the world spins around her. The buzzing in the back of her mind intensifies to the point of pain. She's done this a thousand times and somehow each iteration never gets easier. Rebirth is funny like that, she thinks. With each dose she kills off her former self, sheds her skin, and enters the world anew. That's what they're told, anyway, and based on the way it feels she has no reason to doubt what she's been taught. Her nerves are burning, her skin prickling with a thousand needles slicing through her flesh, the searing pain growing sharper and sharper until it is all she can do to keep from clawing at her own skin.

Restraint is a mark of the faithful. She repeats this mantra with gritted teeth, grips the covers with tightly balled fists until her nails cut through the fabric and leave crescent shaped indentions in the palms of her hands. The agony crashes over her body in unrelenting waves. She's writhing and whimpering and begging for relief, and then—

As quickly it comes on, it subsides. Her impurities have burned away in the flames until all that's left is ice cold focus, the dream and the flirty cashier both forgotten in favor of what's important. She opens her laptop and begins to work.

The second time she leaves, housekeeping has come and gone and she realizes everything she owns reeks of stale cigarette smoke. There is only so much her perfume can cover. She frantically throws all of her clothing into a bag and walks to the laundry facility, which is little more than an open alcove a few doors past down the sidewalk.

There is a rusted old vending machine selling detergent and dryer sheets that, thankfully, still functions enough for her to get what she needs. She dumps the contents of her bag into the nearest washing machine, matches the timer on her phone to the flashing numbers on its washed out LED display, and scurries back to her room before someone else tries to strike up a conversation.

At first the seconds tick by at an agonizing pace. All of the focus she'd found at the bottom of the elixir vial earlier in the day seems to have evaporated into the air. She stares dimly at her laptop screen where words swim in and out of focus and wonders where she went wrong this time. Details begin to blur together, numbers all start to look the same, and when her timer finally startles her out of her reverie it feels like someone's stuffed a live wire beneath her skin.

She throws her clothes into the nearest dryer with far more force than necessary, reveling in the wet splat of soaked fabric on stainless steel. The sound is strangely soothing to her frazzled nerves, and she almost forgets how much her head hurts by the time she tosses in a dryer sheet and cranks the whole thing into motion with a handful of coins.

One cigarette turns into two. She doesn't go back to the room this time, opting instead to sit on a nearby bench and watch cars zoom along the highway. The springtime heat down out of the mountains is already bordering on oppressive, and the sticky afternoon air smells like a strange mix of honeysuckle, tar, exhaust, and stale garbage from a nearby dumpster. It's a strange, heady cocktail that makes her miss home with a fierce sort of longing that catches her off guard with its intensity.

Because, for better or worse, the last few years have turned the Magenta compound into _home_ , and as foreign of a word as that feels in her mouth, she realizes it's the only word that really fits.

The air tastes different there, tucked into the mountains miles away from the nearest ranger outpost. The gardens have been Saeran's pet project from his first day; now bare faced acolytes drape fresh floral garlands on every surface almost daily. Roses, lilacs, lilies, lavender, soft boughs of pine, crisp sprigs of basil and mint. Here, the scent of the rumbling motorcycle engine from three doors down mixes with old fryer grease from the diner across the street, and the slightest breeze kicks all of it up with a cloud of pollution and parking lot grit that somehow manages, against all odds, to find the inside of her mouth when she takes a breath between drags of her cigarette.

She tries to remember what she's read about what home is supposed to feel like. _Home is where love resides_ , proclaimed a kitschy painted sign she saw in a gas station display once. _Home is where the heart is._ She doesn't even know what that one is supposed to mean, but she sees it everywhere, so it's probably significant, somehow. Probably heard it playing on TV at a motel a lot like this one.

It's interesting, she muses as she scratches her head, how none of those phrases really answers the question now burning a hole in her head. Is Magenta home because of some foreign sentiment she still has yet to grasp, or is it simply her home because, at the end of every mission, that is where she flies back to roost like an obedient little carrier pigeon?

Her anxiety spikes as alarm bells go off in the back of her mind. _Dangerous thoughts_ , she reminds herself. These are thoughts that can lead the most devout believer astray. The cigarette tastes bitter between her lips, daydreams of flowers shoved aside by memories of pitch black prison cells and lungfuls of ice water. The price of disobedience, she thinks, will always feel too high to someone like her, someone who is too stupid to even remember all of the rules to follow.

She should thank them, she thinks, for showing her mercy instead. She rubs at a misplaced scar on the back of her hand, trails her fingers down her forearm where the fresh wound from earlier still stings against the gauze. It is still better than anything she could ever hope to deserve.

Even still, she finds herself absentmindedly tapping out a new text message several times before finally sending it. An engine revving in front of the adult video store next door briefly punctuates the afternoon stillness, and then the only sound remaining is the repetitive _clank-clank_ of the dryer cage tossing her clothes back and forth.

 

 

> _N019: ~~do you ever feel like~~ _  
>  _N019: ~~do you e~~_  
>  _N019: ~~how do you know when you~~ _  
>  _N019: status update?_  
>    
>  _K006: …on what?_  
>    
>  _N019: ~~what do they have you doi~~_  
>  _N019: ~~literally anyth~~_  
>  _N019: nvm_  
>  _N019: wrong chat_
> 
> _Read 2:56pm_
> 
>  

Maybe it would feel worse, she thinks, if she were still capable of feeling anything at all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrestled with the end formatting on my iPad for twenty fucking minutes before I gave up on making it not wonky. Sorry T-T. I tried, y'all. I'll fix it later when I have access to a laptop.


End file.
